New PC for a Wargamer - Recommendations?

[DonCzirr]

Looks like the time is coming for me to retire "old reliable" - my 8 GB Win 8.1 Laptop - and is time to pick up a new rig.


Looking at "Gaming PCs" available from various vendors, I see that they are oriented towards 3d shooters and things like Fortnite".


Being primarily a Wargamer, I have little need of 3D graphics but do have the need to process substantial maps and number crunching - examples : AGEOD Pride of Nations / Alea Jacta Est,

War in the East, Strategic Command WIE and WaW.


Any recommendations then for folks that may have gone through a recent exercise?

I'm thinking with Windows 10, 16 GB RAM is a good start ... and perhaps a SSD Drive .... any other Wargamer friendly tips ?

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: DonCzirr

I'm thinking with Windows 10, 16 GB RAM is a good start ... and perhaps a SSD Drive .... any other Wargamer friendly tips ?

At least half-decent graphic adapter. BATTLETECH is one wargame which requires one. My second newest desktop (I'm typing this with it) is little above min spec and is still struggling with long loading times. So definitely go for SSD. Otherwise BATTLETECH's recommended requirements ought to be enough for great majority of other wargames. At least for turn-based games. Say, GTX 1060. Cheapest ones go around $250 new and you may get used ones for much less.

[Anachro]

Well, I don't think you'll be needing a RTX 2080 Ti, if that's what you want. What is your budget? Answer that and I can put together a PC for you accordingly.

[DonCzirr]

Thanks - I was looking at around $800 USD ...

My initial find was :

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DN ... 0DER&psc=1


RAM was low (8 GB RAM) and no SSD - so was thinking to go a couple of hundred dollars higher and go with 12 or 16 GB RAM and perhaps a SSD.


As to the video card - pretty sure I don't need the Battle tech level of performance ....

I do play Sanctus Reach on my current Laptop without any issues with 8 GB RAM and a Nvidia GT820M ...


That is about as 3D and graphical as I am likely to get [:)]

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: DonCzirr

As to the video card - pretty sure I don't need the Battle tech level of performance ....

In that case you may want GTX 1050 or AMD equivalent. I bet 99% of the games will work on it when you crank settings and resolution down enough. My GTX 580 from 2012 play Doom from 2016 just fine with reduced resolution, and newer BATTLETECH and Project Cars 2 are perfectly playable in HD.

[budd]

I'd insist on an SSD, the bigger the better, and I'd cram as much memmory as I could into it.

[Anachro]

My take. The RX 570 will be able to do any wargame you throw at it, even the more graphically demanding ones and should last you a decent amount of time. Feel free to go lower and get a GTX 1050 as suggested above if you wish. The minimum specs for that game you play is a 512mb card with DX9, so a 570 or 560 or 1050 will be fine. Honestly, I put 16 GB of RAM in this build, but that might be overkill depending on how you use your computer. Will you be using it for other applications such as work or will it just be for wargames? Do you like to have many programs open at once? You could probably get by with 8 GB depending. I didn't include a monitor in this build as I assume you have one, so add that to cost if you need.

[Zap]

While Don Cizirr is asking and in response to your point. A few have suggested dual drives because SSD drives are costly and capacity is small. Not sure how ell that combination works? Because I too am in the market for a new laptop.

[Hoeist6634]

I wouldn't go to high on spec's because pc gaming is going to change dramatically over the next coming years with major players launching their game streaming services which will require less high end hardware from the consumerside.

[wodin]

I'm using Win 10 64bit. Ryzan 1600 cpu, AMD 480 8 gig graphics card, 8 gig memory. Don't have one but suggest SSD hard drive.

This runs wargames including ones like Battletech with no problems.

[wodin]

I'd drop the memory abit and get a RX580

You probably have memory overkill.

A system with those specs the 570 stands out as a why? 580 8gig. 8 or 12 gig system memory.

Far better

ORIGINAL: Anachro

My take. The RX 570 will be able to do any wargame you throw at it, even the more graphically demanding ones and should last you a decent amount of time. Feel free to go lower and get a GTX 1050 as suggested above if you wish. The minimum specs for that game you play is a 512mb card with DX9, so a 570 or 560 or 1050 will be fine. Honestly, I put 16 GB of RAM in this build, but that might be overkill depending on how you use your computer. Will you be using it for other applications such as work or will it just be for wargames? Do you like to have many programs open at once? You could probably get by with 8 GB depending. I didn't include a monitor in this build as I assume you have one, so add that to cost if you need.

[berto]

In my computer setups (we have 9 PCs and 3 Macs around here), I prioritize

[*]RAM (the more the better)
[*]CPU speed, multi-cores
[*]dual monitors (or perhaps a single, large 4K monitor)
[*]capacious physical hard drives

I have little need for SSDs. I prefer to spend my money on RAM (devoting whatever excess RAM there is to RAM drive usage, also virtual machine hosting).

I don't do any graphics-intensive gaming, so GPU speed and video card memory are not so much at issue.

YMMV.

[demyansk]

I bought my computer 9.5 years ago from Digital Storm and I have had no problems. Plus, it only cost me a few hundred dollars more than building for myself. I didn't have time to build. I play all the FPS games, max with a 1070 card.

I like the fast gpu, Ssd drives, fast ram and make sure you get a large power supply.

[JReb]

ORIGINAL: Hoeist6634

I wouldn't go to high on spec's because pc gaming is going to change dramatically over the next coming years with major players launching their game streaming services which will require less high end hardware from the consumerside.

Now there is an idea. A $10 monthly subscription to a Slith / Matrix streaming channel to have access to their entire catalog of games. Oh yeah baby! [:D] [8D]

[Hoeist6634]

ORIGINAL: JReb

ORIGINAL: Hoeist6634

I wouldn't go to high on spec's because pc gaming is going to change dramatically over the next coming years with major players launching their game streaming services which will require less high end hardware from the consumerside.

Now there is an idea. A $10 monthly subscription to a Slith / Matrix streaming channel to have access to their entire catalog of games. Oh yeah baby! [:D] [8D]

Couldn't agree with you more![:D]

[Gilmer]

I built this. You could go with a lesser video card and it would be a lot cheaper. It might give you a few ideas? If you're thinking desktop.

Gilmer's/KurtC's computer

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: KurtC

Gilmer's/KurtC's computer

Some old tech there. I recommend i7-8700 in place of 6700K. And appropriate mother board for it.

[tcarusil]

Coincidentally, I read an older article on RAM this morning. Faster is not necessarily better. The specs of the motherboard and the cpu need to be taken into account to make sure that all the RAM you pay for gets used. I found the section about cpu specs particularly interesting. I have been looking at putting together a system and discovered that the cpu I was looking at would not take max advantage of the RAM I was considering. Like a lot of things, its all a matter of properly balancing the components.

https://www.pcsteps.com/7932-real-ram-s ... s-latency/

TomC

[wesy]

I just picked up a Lenovo Legion Y7000 laptop at Costco (online) for $999. I know it's a bit above budget, but specs are good (not a ton of battery life, but it's not an ultrabook). Build quality is good and I like the matte screen.

Intel® Core™ i7-8750H Processor 2.2GHz
16GB DDR4 RAM
1.0TB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive + 256GB PCle Solid State Drive
No Optical Drive

Graphics & Video:
15.6" Anti-glare IPS LED Backlit FHD (1920 x 1080) Display
6GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 Graphics

[Capt. Harlock]

I'd insist on an SSD, the bigger the better, and I'd cram as much memmory as I could into it.

I hear from my computer-savvy co-workers than RAM beyond 12 GB gives less of a boost.

Assuming you're not buying a laptop, I'd go half-and-half with hard drives: a 120 or 240 GB SSD for the C: drive for fast boot-up and Windows tasks, and a big regular hard drive for the data and large apps. My own homebuilt is set up this way, and seems to work pretty well.